Bren Doherty

Leaving the Hell Bird for a little while. I'm always at brendoherty94@gmail.com. Stay classy.

The police response in Calgary to the university student protest last night is a noteworthy contrast to police responses to neo-Nazi and anti-LGBTQ+ rallies in this city. I've lived here my whole life and am shocked to see the different approaches.

Last night’s vigil by Canadian journalists for our peers killed in the Middle East, mostly Palestinian but also Israeli and Lebanese, was sober, thoughtful and much needed. Who was there - and who wasn’t - was also telling.

@EmmaMci @SKRollins Yeah totally. I think there ought to be an expanded version of that.

@Bren_Doherty @SKRollins I also have a tough time with that! But, I do think the easy workaround is when news orgs offer free access through the library!

I don't know who needs to hear this right now but the micropayments model for funding journalism (pay x amount to read one article) has been tried a zillion times and it doesn't work <3

@SKRollins @EmmaMci I'm not necessarily anti-paywall, for the record, but I'm not sure news orgs can describe themselves as providing journalism the public has a right to know, then complain when said public wants to see that information for free.

@SKRollins @EmmaMci I think your point illustrates the trouble I (and others) have with the paywall debate. Journalism is a public good, and journalists need to eat, yet the majority of news orgs are for-profit businesses. Paywalls cut off the public from the info we say they need to know.

@EmmaMci Ahhhh OK. I get the frustration around paywalls, I'll be honest, but in the absence of robust public or nonprofit funding for newsrooms, there aren't many other ways for journalists to pay the bills.

@Bren_Doherty Not a particular figure really, just have been seeing it a lot in response to media layoffs and also people complaining about paywalls!

@Songstress28 Thank you Brandi. You're an inspiration, and I'm so glad you've been released. The fact police forces can get away with arresting a journalist for documenting what can only be described as a purge of unhoused Indigenous people from their homes is despicable.

I am not a criminal. But today I was charged with a criminal offence while doing my job as a journalist documenting the actions of police raiding vulnerable, unhoused, unarmed Indigenous Peoples in their own territories to displace them out of their tent homes & throw their belongings in a dump. I’m pissed that I was impeded from reporting on the incident. I’m pissed about the continual trauma faced by our people; the forcible removal of our people from Native lands & the phony charade of reconciliation. The violence that occurred today is not the answer. I can’t stop thinking about the people whose belongings were ravaged and thrown in dumps today. About the city injunction to sweep these people to the curb as if that will solve the problem. The city does not have a solution, the province doesn’t either. When the officer told the elder today they were going to be ‘forcibly removed’ I thought, ‘same old.’ The land acknowledgments are a joke. Edmonton isn’t the only place this is happening, it’s the aftermath of the greatest injustice that’s ever occurred across Turtle Island. The aftermath of genocide, yet the violence willfully continues.

@EmmaMci It's still jammed down to one lane on Eglinton approaching Yonge tho - but yeah, unbelievable to see.

I first moved to Toronto in 2014 and I have never experienced a normal Yonge and Eg, I actually cannot comprehend this

"Workers with sensory or learning disabilities are 20% less likely to have been offered a promotion than their non-disabled counterparts." Good read from @Bren_Doherty @globeandmail theglobeandmail.com/business/caree…

Hey everyone! I'm currently covering food and restaurant stories for @blogTO! Feel free to DM or email me if you have any news tips.

My identity as an Alberta, shattered

@SammyHudes YYC: Boys with the big hats. YEG: Boys with the hard hats.

The province of Alberta summarized in two tweets

@alex_n_boyd @RosaJSaba @SammyHudes @andrew_jeffrey Twas a cow, techically, but yes! Hurt just as much as falling off a steer.

@RosaJSaba @SammyHudes @andrew_jeffrey right up there with @Bren_Doherty who we somehow managed to get on a steer thestar.com/calgary/2019/0…

Every time Calgary Stampede season comes around I re-read this piece from me and @andrew_jeffrey where we ate some of the weirdest Stampede foods ... blindfolded. (there's video) thestar.com/calgary/2019/0…

@EmmaMci @alex_n_boyd Or, rather, there's a better visual aid, even if the will to change anything is still lacking.

@EmmaMci @alex_n_boyd I agree, tho, that it's a lot easier to push stronger climate policy when smoke from thousands of kilometres away is drifting over your head.

I’ve wondered whether people in power would feel more urgency on climate action if wildfire smoke affected Toronto and Ottawa more. And, well, I guess we’ll see

@alex_n_boyd @EmmaMci At the risk of sounding very cynical, I wonder if there is enough of a physical and policy disconnect between wildfire smoke over Toronto and the root cause that policymakers (and normal people) will shrug and say: Well, this is bad, but what am I going to do about it?

@EmmaMci That's a good question! Surely someone out there is doing polling on this...

"Toronto Election 2022" from @TheLocal_TO has tied for silver in Best News Coverage (Community Publication)! Congratulations to the team at The Local! #DPA23

I'm a ghostly presence on Twitter these days, but I need to do some figurative can-rattling and TV set haunting. For journalism. Working on a story for Wahi about the emotional roller coaster of homebuying. I'd love to hear from you for a quick chat: brendoherty94@gmail.com

Well would ya look at that! @Bren_Doherty makes his Narwhal debut with this awesome feature on TTC service cuts that originally ran in @TheLocal_TO! thenarwhal.ca/ttc-service-cu…